


Running From Hell

by huntressofdreams



Category: Supernatural
Genre: After Season 8, Alternate Universe - Different Ending, Gen, Kevin's not dead, Original Character(s), beginning of season 9
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-14
Updated: 2014-05-22
Packaged: 2018-01-08 16:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1134735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huntressofdreams/pseuds/huntressofdreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean gets a phone call from a young girl asking for help. The only thing he has to go on is Benny's word - but Benny is in Purgatory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Call for Help

The Impala flew down an open road. The radio was blasting, and the odometer was creeping past 60. Country surrounded them. A town sign a mile back said Springfield, Vermont. Dean’s off-key voice sang along to _Scorpion_ ’s “Rock You Like a Hurricane”. Sam, sitting next to him, tried desperately to tune him out. A phone started ringing. Dean let up on the gas and turned the volume down before answering. he glanced at the caller ID - blocked - and flipped open his phone. “Hello?”

“Dean? Dean Winchester?” a voice answered. It was a girl, at least in her twenties. She sounded nervous.

“Yeah,” Dean replied, making a turn. “Who’s asking?”

The girl took a breath before answering. “My name is Lucy.” There was a pause. It was so long, Dean thought the line might’ve disconnected. “Benny said you could help me.”

“Dean pulled over, the Impala running onto the grass. “Benny’s dead,” he said into the phone, almost accusingly.

“Well, then, so am I.” the girl - Lucy - sighed. “Look, I’m somewhere in Maine. Millinocket, I think. Benny said you could help. Are you gonna make him a liar?”

Dean thought that over. on the one hand, he’d probably do just about anything for Benny. On the other, he had no way to know for sure if Lucy did know Benny, and if she did, she had probably been to Purgatory.

He had been mulling that over longer than he thought he had, and realized when Lucy said, “Dean? You still there?”

“Uh, yeah,” he said. “Let me - Let me call you back.” Something occurred to him then. “Lucy, where are you calling from?”

“Found a phone in a convenience store,” she answered. “had to break a window, but I didn’t take anything.” There was another pause. “Okay, some food and water, but, hey, hunger doesn’t work the same down under.”

“Uh, okay,” Dean exclaimed. “Gimme a minute, okay, Lucy?”

“You know where to find me,” she said, and a click told him she hung up.

“What’s up?” Sam asked, bringing Dean out of his thoughts. Dean sighed, and turned to face his brother.

After Dean had explained what he could, he sat back and waited for a response. He didn’t have to wait long.

“I think we should check it out, see what she wants,” Sam decided.

“Really?”

Sam shrugged. “Yeah. I mean, if she does know Benny, she was in Purgatory, right? And if she got out, she’s gotta be human.”

“Well, not necessarily,” Dean argued. “Another human could’ve gotten in, and she could’ve convinced him to take her with.”

Sam thought that over for a bit, but stuck with his decision. “I still think we should at least talk to her.”

Dean thought it over. Pulling out his phone, he said, “All right.” He redialed the last number, and listened to the dial tone.

“Yeah?” Lucy answered.

“We’re a few states away. We should be there in a few hours.”

He could almost hear her grinning through the phone. “Great!” she exclaimed. “Let me know when you’re close, and I’ll give you the coordinates.”

She hung up, and Dean continued down the road.

 

* * *

  
  


She sighed as she placed the phone back on the receiver. Benny had warned her that Dean might not trust her, and she was betting he wouldn’t.

Lucy had lied, though. It was minor - she had taken things from the store - but she wanted to stay on his good side, for Benny’s sake. She tugged nervously on the leather gloves she had found behind the counter. She glanced around the store that she had semi-trashed. _Well_ , she thought. _Looks like I’ll be here for a while. Best make the most of it._

She stood and gathered some food. The corner store wasn’t very well stocked, so most of her snacks consisted of cookies and soda. This time, it included a slice of pumpkin pie, a Snickers bar, and a can of Arizona sweet tea. She sat at the counter, kicked her feet up, and turned on the computer. She had finished her pie by the time it had booted up and logged in.

Starting in on her Snickers, Lucy turned on Internet Explorer. When it finally loaded, she went to Google. She thought about doing the owner a favor and downloading Chrome or Firefox, but decided faster internet wasn’t the best thing in the world.

Instead, she typed “Dean Winchester” into the search bar. There had to be some sort of record on him, she figured. It took some digging, but she eventually found something.

It was a newspaper. The date was in 2005. Skipping the headline, she skimmed over the story. _Dean Winchester . . . Murder . . . attempted murder . . ._

That grabbed her attention. She read through the whole thing. The article made it sound like Dean was charged with three murders, and one attempted murder, but had been killed before he could be convicted. If Lucy had to guess, she’d say shapeshifter.

Finished with that, she clicked back to the search engine. Scrolling through the results, she saw nothing that interested her.

Twenty-two years ago, Sam and Dean’s mother died in a demonic fire. Now, they criss-cross the country hunting monsters.

That was interesting enough . . . She clicked on the link, and was brought to what looked like a fan page for some book. Supernatural. She scrolled through the summary, which sounded a little too real to her. She opened up a new Google search.

_Supernatural._

She looked through the hits. Most of it was about monsters, or random books she’d never heard of. There was even a link to a supposedly haunted bed & breakfast. She went back and refined her search.

_Supernatural by Carver Edlund_.

This was a bit more helpful. The third link down even brought her to a few of the books that were online. She glanced at the clock and did a quick calculation. If they were just a few states away, and if memory served her, it would take them about five hours to reach her. She had plenty of time. She turned to the monitor and started reading.

****

* * *

 

She had finished the first book and was three chapters in to Wendigo, the second, when the phone rang.

“Hola, mi amigos,” she exclaimed into the receiver. When there was an extremely long pause from the other end, she realized she should’ve checked the caller ID.

“Lucy,” Dean said, making her sigh in relief. “Did you just call me your amigo?”

She nodded to no one in particular and said, “I most certainly did!”

“Don’t.” He didn’t sound annoyed, though. He seemed more amused. “Look, we’re in the Maine woods. Can you give me a more exact location?”

“Sure!” She started poking keys on the computer. “Just a sec.” It took some time, but she managed to pull up coordinates. “Hey, Dean, are you driving?” When she got the yes she knew she would, she continued with, “Give Sam the phone.”

She expected an argument, but the next thing she heard was, “Hey, Lucy, it’s Sam.” His voice wasn’t as deep as his brother, and in just those four words, she knew he was not nearly as good-spirited as Dean may be.

“Hey, Sam,” she said. “Got a paper?” She waited, then listed the latitude and longitude. “It’s got some old gas pumps from the fifties outside,” she added.

“Got it,” Sam told her. “Thanks. We’ll be there soon.”

When the click told her he hung up, she went back to the story.

After four more chapters, Lucy looked up to see the Impala pull up to the shack of a building. She wanted to hop up and meet them outside, but forced herself to stay in the chair, and at least pretend she was reading.

When the bell rang, announcing their entrance, she looked up to meet their gazes. “Lucy?” Sam guessed.

Taking her feet off the desk and leaning forward, she said, “The one and only.” She thought that over. “Well, there are other Lucys . . . But I’m the only me!”

“Well,” Dean started, with a nice half-smile that had probably gotten a large handful of girls in his bed, but wouldn’t get her anywhere. “What was a pretty girl like you goin’ with Benny?”

She smiled back at him and said, “I wasn’t always pretty.” Something struck him as familiar. What was it?

They walked closer, and as they did, Lucy watched Dean’s face, waiting for that possible second of familiarity. She could tell the exact moment he recognized her. In between his fourth and fifth step, his eyes widened, his jaw dropped slightly, and his steps stuttered. As his left floor landed on his fifth step, he tripped over his own feet. He caught himself before he fell, and continued walking as if it hadn’t happened.

Lucy nodded, recognizing his recognition. Now she stood, coming around the desk. She walked up to Sam and placed her hand on his shoulders. She steadied him, stopping his tall frame from moving. The she stepped back and studied him.

He was tall, over six foot, and she guessed he probably weighed about 170 pounds. His long hair was in desperate need of a cut, and he probably need to find a laundromat, too.

That wasn’t what Lucy paid attention to, though. She noticed the steady eyes, the quick hands, the knife in the jacket pocket, the gun in the waistband that she didn’t even have to look for to know was there. Just looking at him, she could see that look that clearly said he was a protector. A protector of his friends and family. Lucy got the feeling she wasn’t high on his list, but would keep her safe if she was in danger.

When she had formed her opinion of Sam, she turned to Dean. He still gave her a nagging feeling that they’d met before, but she worked past that. He, like his brother, needed to wash his clothes, but his hair was a much more reasonable length. His green eyes studied her as she studied him, but where she was trying to learn more about him, he seemed to be judging whether or not he would beat her in a fight. He seemed to decide he could, and leaned back against the counter, waiting for her to finish her own study.

“Nice to finally meet you, Dean,” Lucy told him. “Benny’s good at talking, and lucky for me, you’re his favorite subject.”

“And yet,” he exclaimed, “I’ve never heard of you.”

“Well, there’s a good reason for that.” She paused long enough to unwrap a chocolate bar and take a bite out of it. “Believe it or not, he didn’t know me when he knew you.”

“See, I thought you were going to say that,” Dean replied. “But the thing is, he’s in Purgatory. And the only way you could’ve met him is if you were there.”

Lucy sighed and boosted herself on top of the counter. “Funny how things work out, isn’t it?”

“How did you get there?” Sam asked after a moment. “To Purgatory?”

“Oh honey, that’s for me to know,” she replied, “and you to . . . not know.” She took another bite of the chocolate bar, and, afterwards, continued with, “But I will say this - I am human. Wouldn’t have gotten out if I wasn’t, as you well know.” She finished off her chocolate. It was a while before anyone spoke.

“How did you die?”

Lucy turned to face Dean. She thought that over. “You don’t have to die to go to Purgatory.” She tugged nervously at her gloves. “What makes you think I did?” She hopped up and walked over to him. She still couldn’t put her finger on why he looked so familiar. So that's what she did. She put her finger on him. She felt him tense up as she traced her hand around his chest and arms.


	2. Flash to the Past

_He didn't scream. He never did. That's why I liked him so much. he was my favorite soul to torture, and I had tortured so many._

_He never spoke. Niether did I. He was placed on the rack in front of me, his eyes wide. He was here often. I think Alastair was hoping to break him, and thought I could be the one to do that. I hoped he never broke.  
_

_I traced my gloved fingers up his arm and across his chest, down his other arm. His eyes squeezed shut. There was no pain, not yet, but he knew it was coming. I rested my hands on his stomach and waited for his eyes to open, for him to look at me.  
_

_I liked torture, I always had. Even when I was a little girl, I had loved watching the horror movies, or beating up boys on the playground. When I learned what I could do, I was excited. I didn't want to stop.  
_

_Then I died. And even in my death, I still torture. But I didn't like it as much anymore.  
_

_He finally looked at me. His green eyes pierced mine. For a brief moment, I wondered what his name was. The thought was gone as soon as it arose.  
_

_Ever so slowly, I leaned down. His eyes widened slightly, and his lips opened in a muted cry. I quickly covered them with my own before any noise could escape. He made a muffled sound that I assumed was surprise. Was he expecting something more painful?  
_

_I felt my lips warm. I pressed them more firmly against his. I spread my lips just a hair, but managed to get the reaction I wanted. His tongue touched mine.  
_

_. . . And he promptly started screaming. Caught off gaurd, the pain surprised him. He certainly hadn't expected a torture session in the middle of a make out session.  
_

_This hadn't been the first time I'd done this trick, but it was the first time I'd used it on him. For some reason, I felt out relationship - if you could call it that - was too . . . intimate to use kissing as an excuse to cause him pain.  
_

_He was a good kisser, though.  
_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (This chapter's only a flashback. It's supposed to be short. Promise no other chapters are nearly as short as this one, though.)


	3. Back to Attack

She blinked, coming out of the past. She lifted her hand, but barely moved it. When her fingers were an inch off his chest, Dean stepped back. His jaw clenched, and Lucy could see the muscles ripple.

Lucy stepped back, not so much to give him space as to let herself think. She remembered every poor soul she had ever tortured, but for some reason, his had slipped her mind.

“Lucy?” someone said. The girl blinked rapidly, trying to clear her mind. She turned to Sam.

“What?” she asked. “Oh. Right. You wanted to know how I died.” She paused, contemplating whether or not she should tell them. Deciding it wouldn’t do any harm, she continued. “A demon. Looked like a little girl, but more . . . disfigured.”

“Disfigured how?” Sam asked. Dean was still leaning against the counter. He looked like he was trying to catch his breath.

Lucy tried to ignore him, and focused instead on the question. “Like, talons instead of nails, bit of a messed up face, discolored eyes, that sort of thing.”

Sam, just now noticing his brother’s discomfort, tugged on his arm and led him to a corner of the small room.

“What’s going on?” he asked in a hushed tone. With his back to Lucy, she found it a bit hard to hear, but not impossible.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Dean replied, not nearly as quietly.

“I think you do,” Sam said. “Lucy? You act like you know her. More than that, you act like you’re afraid of her.”

“If I may,” Lucy interrupted. She unwrapped a bag of nuts and popped one in her mouth. “We met. About . . . What, five years ago?”

Dean nodded and muttered, “Feels a hell of a lot longer.”

She snorted. “Understatement of the year right there.” There was a long pause in which Sam stared, confused, at the two of them.

“How’d you get out?” Dean asked, breaking the silence.

“After Big Bad jumped ship - these are stale.” Lucy stared at the bag of nuts, and chucked them in the trash. “Anyway, once Lucifer got out, Hell broke loose in Hell. It took me a while, but eventually, I found a back door. Thing is, it didn’t go to Heaven, or home. I ended up in Purgatory. God only knows how I survived that place.

“After a while, I started going back and forth. The first time I went back to Hell, I almost didn’t recognize it. The second time I went, I learned Crowley had been named King of Hell. Which was fine by me. There was a heck of a lot less torturing going on down there when he was in charge.

“It wasn’t long after that when I met Benny. And I’m not afraid to say he saved my ass more than once. it was him who showed me how to get out of Purgatory - without going back through Hell. When I was out, he told me - he said to call you.” She paused then, and closed her eyes. “‘Dean Winchester’,” she recited. “‘He can help. Just tell him I sent ya.’”

* * *

 

“Why . . . Why were you in Hell?” Sam wondered.

“Does it matter?” Lucy plopped down in the chair behind the desk and started spinning in it.

He nodded. “Yeah, I think it does.”

“No,” Dean said instead. “It doesn’t. Because she’s not coming with us.”

“Oh, come on now, Dean.” Lucy stopped spinning. “We had a good time!”

That finally got his attention enough to bring him a step closer to her. “That’s your definition of a good time?”

“Hell, yeah!” Lucy saw his discomfort and anger. She frowned, sensing she’d crossed some sort of line. “Look, Dean . . . I’m sorry. I had to, you know that.” He nodded, and she took that as an “I know” or an “Okay”. It gave her the nerve to stand, lean over the counter closer to him, and continue. “I am sorry. I don’t like what I did. and I’ll do everything I can to never do anything like that again.”

He didn’t nod again, but his face seemed a little softer. She built up to it slowly, and, when she was sure he wouldn’t move away, placed her gloved hand over his.

The whole room shook and the lights flickered.

Lucy yanked her hand away as Dean shouted, "What did you do?!"

"Nothing!" she cried over the din of the shaking building. "I haven't done anything!" From the corner of her eye, she watched Sam pull out a gun and assume a "ready for battle" position. Across from her, Dean did the same. Unsure what to do herself, she stripped her gloves and tried to copy them.

Lucy had been scared many times in her life, but after spending hundreds of years in Hell and Purgatory, she thought fear no longer applied to her. Oh, how wrong she was.

She grabbed up the keyboard from the computer in front of her. What the hell am I doing? she thought, dropping it. She spread her fingers wide and placed her bare hands on the wood of the counter. That didn't help calm her like she thought it would, and instead started pacing. THree laps in, she decided that was ridiculous, and just walked around the counter to stand with the boys.

The doors swung open. They slammed back against the walls so hard, the glass shattered out of them. As the shards hit the ground, the room stopped moving. A figure appeared in the doorway, shadowed by the flickering lights. More shapes appeared behind it.

As they walked forward, the meaningless blobs turned into people. The first one to appear, whom Lucy assumed to be the leader, was a woman with black hair that met the waistband of her jeans. The other three were all men in dirty clothing, as if they had been working in a field.

"Hello, Dean," the woman said. She turned to face the other Winchester. "Sam." The boys nodded, more out of politeness than anything else, but were still tense. "I believe you have something of ours." Her eyes flicked to black and she started forward.

Sam and Dean started shooting at her, to no effect. As they reloaded, Lucy stepped forward.

"Lucy, don't!" Dean exclaimed after he noticed. Sam reached out to pull her back, but she yanked her arm away before he could get a hold.

She walked towards the demon, whose eyes widened in confusion. To answer the unasked question, Lucy grabbed the demon's bare arms. It wasn't a very threatening move, and to any onlooker, it might even seem friendly, but the demon immediately began screaming.

She was so loud and wouldn't stop. She pulled and pulled, but Lucy wouldn't let go. She forced a searing pain to shoot up the demon's arms. She imagined what holy water might feel like to a creature of Hell, and forced that on her, magnified by one hundred.

The earsplitting noise erupting from the possessed human's lungs became too much to bear. Lucy snatched away from her and clamped her hands down hard over her ears.

Without Lucy forcing some sort of torture into her skin, the demon slowed her screams, which slowly declined into pants.

"What just happened?" Sam asked after a while.

Instead of answering, the demons smoked out.

The girl spoke before she left. "We'll be back," she told them. "For her."

* * *

 

Lucy collapsed onto the floor, beside the unconscious - and probably dead - formerly possessed woman. A few moments of stunned silence later, Dean knelt beside her. In his hands were the pair of gloves she had left on the counter. She looked up at him gratefully, and slipped them over her long fingers. A single tear fell from her eye, but she was quick to wipe it away.

Dean noticed the movement, and put an arm around her shoulders. "She was a demon, Lucy," he consoled. "She deserved it, trust me."

She nodded, accepting what he had to say. She stood and faced Sam. She took a deep breath before saying, "I was a pretty good torturer in Hell."

He scoffed. "Yeah, I guess so." He shifted his weight and placed his gun back in the waistband of his well-fitting jeans. "How did you do that?

Lucy shrugged. "I don't really know. I've been able to do it for . . . What year is it?"

"2013," Dean answered.

"Wow . . ." She made a sound that was half sob, half laugh. "Eight years. That's if? Felt a lot longer."

"Eight years?" Sam asked. "Eight years of what?" Then it dawned on him. "Oh . . . Eight years of Hell?"  
Lucy nodded.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-three," she answered.

His eyes and mouth widened in disbelief. "So you were . . . fifteen when you died?"  
"What?" Her brow furrowed in confusion, then relaxed as understanding filled her eyes. "Oh! No, I was twenty-three when I died. So I guess I'm thirty . . . one, now."

"Huh," Sam sounded.

Lucy glanced between the two. She suddenly got the feeling she was missing something. "What?"

Sam cleared his throat, shook his head, and said, "I guess we're the same age."

"O-kay," Lucy said. She still felt as though she was the only one that didn't know some inside joke. "So, uh . . . Well, in case you haven't noticed," she stated, motioning to the store, "I'm broke. And dead. And I have no idea how I'm supposed to restart my life. ANy chance you can help with that?"

"Sure," Dean said after a moment's hesitation. "Yeah. Yeah, we can do that. Come on, we'll give ya a lift."


	4. The Secrets of Arkham

It didn't take long for Lucy to fall asleep to the low rumble of the old car. Memories of fire, pain, and darkness seeped into her dreams, but she didn't wake. She dreamt of her first night in the pit.

It was traditional for a soul's first night in Hell to be tortured, then offered if they wanted to be the torturer. Lucy's beginning was no exception. The man that stood above her, in both her dreams and her memories, smiled. His lips curled back, showing more teeth than a dentist saw. He raised a hook of some sort, and brought it down on her skin.

The hook pierced her stomach, but instead of pulling it out and using it again, the man grabbed another. He threw that into her shoulder.

Lucy was quiet. She didn't scream, but hell if she wasn't making any noise. Slow, sullen whimpers escaped up her throat. Tears flowed as easily as her blood. As she watched the giant of a man, she studied his tattooed face and tried to ignore the machete that was now in his hands. He sliced downwards, and Lucy screamed as if pitched into her heart.

She awoke panting, curled up on the back seat of the Impala. As she unrolled herself, Dean glanced at her in the rearview mirror.

"Hey, look who's alive," he exclaimed. "Good timing, we're almost there."

Lucy shook her head. "Almost where?" she asked, pushing her hair back.

"The Batcave," was all he said as an answer. He grinned wide as he said it.

"Hey," Sam said, turning partially in his seat to face her. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she told him. "Fine." He didn't seem very convinced. "Yeah, I'm alright. Just - bad dream." His eyes softened and he nodded in understanding.

"So, um," Lucy continued before he turned back around. She straightened herself on the bench seat and glanced out the window. "What's the Batcave?"

The Impala slowed, and a slight vibrating started as the wheels pulled over gravel. "This is," Dean answered, and shut off the engine. He opened his door, climbed out, and turned around to open Lucy's.

She nodded her thanks and stared up at what seemed like an abandoned fallout shelter. It basically looked like a hobbit hole, with shrubbery growing around the only visible portion of the building, an old door set into bricks, which were set into cement. "You actually live here?" she exclaimed. She walked over to the door and twisted the knob. "The door's stuck, anyway."

"Not," Dean said, stepping forward, "if you have the key." He unlocked the door and welcomed her in.

* * *

 

Down in the library, Lucy was finally impressed. High, arching ceilings gave way to hundreds of bookshelves and mahogany tables. The room was huge, and incredibly beautiful. Hallways zig-zagged away into who knows where.

"Five stars, boys," Lucy congratulated.

Dean grinned, staring into the room. "You like it?"

"Hell, yeah," she provided. "This is definitely a step up from my last place."

"What was your last place?" someone asked. Lucy twisted around to see a twenty-something year old with definite Asian background. His hair was cut short, and he had at least three layers on, despite the warmth.

"Hell," Lucy answered with a tilt of her head. The boy just nodded.

"Where's Cas?" Dean asked, interrupting Lucy's blossoming thoughts.

The stranger nodded his head to one of the hallways, saying, "Sleeping." Dean disappeared through said hallway, and the boy turned to Lucy. "I'm Kevin."

"Lucy."

"You want some coffee or something, Lucy?"

"I'd love some." She followed him into the kitchen. "You got any apples?"

The kitchen was basically a large rectangle, with the counter wrapping around to meet the entrance. Despite the counter making the room appear small, it was still big enough to have an island in it. Lucy pulled a stool up to it and pulled an apple from the fruit basket that was now in front of her. She let her eyes follow Kevin's ass as he made her coffee.

"Hope you like regular," he told her. "'S'all we got."

"Sure," she replied. She took another bite of the apple. "So what are you in for?"

"What?" he asked as he prepped the coffee. She took another bite and walked over to him. She leaned against the counter and rephrased her question.

"The Winchesters," she said. "Why are you with them? You know, it's not just something that happens. You don't hang out with demon hunters for no reason." She traced him with her eyes and continued. "So what is it?"

Kevin poured two cups of coffee and took a sip. He stared at nothing as he started talking. "I'm a prophet," he told her. "And I've got no where else to go." There was a long pause in which the two just stood drinking coffee.

"So what about you?" Kevin finally asked.

Lucy took another long sip. When that was down her throat, she took another. "Oh, you know," she said eventually. "Same deal, more or less. Got no where to go, so I ended up here." Kevin looked on expectantly. Did he think she was going to keep talking? If he did, he was wrong.

She turned away from him to refill ehr cup. Taking a swig, she stepped out of the kitchen and found her way back to the library. Sam was right where they left him, except now with a glowing computer screen in front of him. Dean and a person that Lucy assumed was Cas had also joined. She plopped down in a chair next to him.

"Thought I heard you were asleep?" she asked.

He shifted uncomfortably in his own chair. He looked over at her and his blue puppy-dog eyes squinted together. "I was," he answered. "And now I'm not."

Lucy slowly nodded in a way that rocked her whole body. "Right then." She huffed and stuck out a gloved hand. "Lucy."

Cas stared at her hand for a few seconds before reaching with his own. As he did so, his trenchcoat pulled back slightly, revealing extremely pale skin. "Castiel," he replied.

"Nice to meet ya, Castiel," she said, smiling. He was very handsome, with his dark hair and bright eyes. He carried with him a sense of naivety rarely seen outside of a child.

Dean started coughing. Realizing she was staring, Lucy looked down. She then noticed the reason for Dean's interruption. She loosened her fingers slightly, and Castiel quickly pulled away.

"Don't worry, Dean," she exclaimed. "I won't try to steal your boyfriend." Dean just made a face in response.

"What's with the gloves?" Kevin asked, following her to the table.

She glanced down at her hands again. "Would you like to find out?" she asked, looking back up.

"Nope," Dean said immediately, he stood and walked over to place himself between her and Kevin. "No, that's a bad idea."

Lucy shrugged and took another sip from her mug. Kevin shook his head at the both of them and disappeared through a door.

"Well, he's a bundle of laughs," Lucy remarked.

"Give the kid a break," Dean told her. "He became a prophet, lost his mom, and was kidnapped by the King of Hell. He's gonna have a few loose screws."

She snorted. "Crowley ain't that bad," she decided. "So long as you don't have something he wants, he's an okay guy."

"And how would you know that?"

She rolled her neck and stretched her hands above her head. "How do ya think?" she exclaimed. She twisted her hands behind her head and started braiding her hair. "I met him. And you can learn a hell of a lot in Hell. Demons. Honestly. There's more gossip between them than there is in a high school locker room." She twisted her now complete braid in a knot and let it fall out.

"Really now?" Dean exclaimed. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "So what's the demon dirt on us?"

Lucy started to laugh. "Oh, there's too much to fit in a day," she exclaimed. "This gist; they don't like you very much. And everyone seems to want him dead."S he pointed her cup at Sam before taking another sip from it.

"What did I do?" the man in question exclaimed.

"What didn't you do?" Lucy put her cup down and started twisting her hair again. "No offense,l Sam, but the way I heard it, you pretty much shit on Hell - and, by extension, demons - every chance you get. I think they have every reason to want you dead."

He didn't talk for a while. Lucy began to think he was planning on ignoring her, when he finally spoke. "Yeah." Sam pushed his own hair back and sighed. "Yeah, I guess that's true." He stood and walked out.

"Sam!" Dean called. He stood to follow his brother. As he walked, he pointed at Lucy. "We're not done."

And then they were gone, leaving Lucy alone with Castiel. "Well, I guess it's up to you to give me the grand tour," she told him.

In answer, he squinted his eyes and tilted his head.

"Or not," she decided, and, with a shaking head, stood and walked down a hallway chosen at random.

* * *

 

"Shit," Lucy muttered - for the fourth time in the last five minutes. She hadn't realized how large this place was when she first started walking. She certainly did now, though. "I am so, so lost."

Somehow - she couldn't remember for the life of her exactly how - Lucy had ended up in an abnormally large room with hundreds of shelves holding thousands of documents. It seemed to her to be some sort of storage room, similar to what you might find behind an "Employees Only" door in a library.

"Hello?" she called, giving up on trying to find her way out. "Sam? Dean?" No one answered. "Anyone?" she tried again, but this shout was much weaker. Could anyone even hear her from here - wherever here was?

"Well, you're new," someone said decisively.

Lucy followed the voice, but ran into a wall. She placed her hand on it, trying to track the new sound, when he spoke again. "So what are you doing here?" he asked. "Come to torture me? Kevin didn't get enough of that?"  
Kevin? Didn't Dean say something about Kevin being torture by someone?

"Come on, sweetheart." He had to be on the other side of that wall. That's where he was the loudest. "You scared?"

"Hundred years of torture, I don't think there's a whole lot I am afraid of. And it's certainly not you." She pulled on the shelves, sliding them open. "Crowley."

The suited, bloody man smiled at the sound of his name. "Do I know you?" His eyes tried to look apologetic, but failed miserably. "I've tortured lots of people. It's a bit hard to keep track."

She smiled thinly at him. "No, you never tortured me yourself." She stepped forward, hips swinging. "Name's Lucy."

"Lucy, huh?" The demon looked to the ground, thinking. "You know, Azazel had a kid by that name. Any chance you're connected?"

The girl sat down in front of him and smiled. "Oh, you wish I wasn't." She stripped her gloves from her hands and leaned forward.

"What is this?" Crowley asked. Lucy thought he looked a little worried, but it was gone in a blink. "Some weird kink?"

"Would you like it to be?"

He looked down at her as if sizing her up. "Look, you're a beautiful girl and all, but I think you might be a bit young for me."

Lucy shrugged, getting up on her knees. She grabbed at the back of his neck and pulled forward. Just before their lips touched, she murmured, "Oh well."

* * *

 

"There you are!" someone exclaimed. Lucy turned around to see Dean standing behind her, arms crossed. "Where'd you go?"

"Brought it upon myself to get a tour of your castle. Loved the observatory, by the way."

"Yeah, I'm sure you were so excited, you started screaming." He glared down at her.

"Oh," she said, averting her eyes. "So, I guess you heard that, huh?" He nodded. "O-kay . . . Well, see ya!" She turned on her heel and made her way over to the door. Or at least, she tried to.

Dean reached out and grabbed her arm, stopping her from going much further. "Where do you think you're going?"

Lucy turned to face him and resisted the urge to spit on his stupidity. "I'm leaving. Duh!"

He sighed. "Okay, but why?"

"Because you won't have me." Her vision began to blur, and she quickly turned away before he noticed. She blinked away the coming tears before saying, "It's fine. No one has ever really cared enough about me to stay. I won't burden you, since I know you don't want me to." She shook her arm out of his grip and walked up the stairs and out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to make it clear that the kissing bit with Crowley was for Lucy to torture him, not make out with him. Just in case that wasn't clear enough...
> 
> Please leave comments, let me know how it is. I wrote this a while ago, but starting after the next chapter, it will all be recently written, so any tips you can give me for the future chapters will be great.


	5. Trouble in Paradise

"Hey," Sam said, coming up behind his brother. "Where's she going?"

"Leaving," Dean answered. He turned and walked away.

"Why?" Sam stepped in front of him, stopping him from leaving.

Dean paused his exit and, not looking at him, said, "Something about no one accepting her. Something along those lines.

Sam looked away. His eyebrows furrowed as he thought that over. "Why . . . Why would she think that?"

Dean shrugged and walked off.

"Dammit," Sam muttered, and ran out the door. "Lucy!" he called, spotting her. She was walking down the road - still in earshot.

She ignored him. He did see her arms come up and cross over her chest, and took that to mean she was listening.

"Lucy, where are you going?"

She twisted and started walking backwards. "Somewhere!" she called back. "Anywhere I can."

"You can stay here," he said, walking forward. She stopped moving, but stood her ground, letting him come to her.

"And what if I don't want to?" she said when he had made half the distance.

He tilted his head in a sort of nod, still moving. "Honestly, I hadn't thought of that." Now he paused, contemplating an idea. "Come with me," he offered

"Where?" Lucy still stayed where she was, but her body betrayed her, and she leaned forward.

Sam started backing up. "Wait here," he told her. He turned on his heel and jogged back inside the bunker.

* * *

 

Feet tapped against the dash of the Impala, molding with the beat of Aerosmith's "Rag Doll."

"Rag doll, livin' in a movie," Lucy sang along. She hummed the parts she didn't know and continued with, "You'll never see her leavin' by the back door."

As she hitched her hands to the seat belt for a quick air guitar solo, Sam glanced over at her and laughed. Her auburn hair - still a mess, just like when they found her - had thrown itself into her face, with some stuck in her teeth, thanks to the wind. With that, her bare feet high, and her hands stringing nonexistent chords on the belt across her chest, she looked like a crazed maniac. Then again, she probably was.

"I'm surprised Dean had any Aerosmith," Lucy commented. "He seems more like a Led Zeppelin kinda guy."

"Yeah, he is," Sam decided. "But I guess he's got a bit of variety when it comes to classic rock."

"Aerosmith's more prog than classic, but whatever."

Sam laughed again.

"What?"

"Nothing," he said as innocently as he could. When Lucy looked over at him, he was shaking his head.

"Come on, Why are you laughing?" she insisted.

"You're just . . ." he sighed and held back another laugh. "You're so much like him. Dean."

"Oh, yeah?" she said, strumming another chord on her fake guitar.

"Yeah." Sam turned the wheel, revealing a small town. He lowered the volume that Lucy had cranked up.

"How so?" She opened her door and climbed out, glancing around at the surrounding shops. "And what are we doing here?"

"Well," Sam started, leading her down the street. "you've been dead for, what? eight years? I just figured you didn't want to be cooped up.

"Yeah," she said mutely. "Where are we, anyway?"

"Lebanon, Kansas."

Why did that sound familiar to her?

"Hey!" she exclaimed when it finally clicked into place. "Kansas. Weren't you born here? What are you doing back?"  
Before it could occur to her that she probably said something wrong, Sam stopped.

"What?" she asked, confused. "Was it something I said?" She paused, contemplating the thought that she hadn't showered in a good eight years.

Instead of pointing out her bad breath, Sam pointed into one of the shops. "Shouldn't there be more people around?" he wondered.

Lucy looked around. She hadn't noticed until now, but there were no other cars. No one was walking around or anything. The lights were off in all the shops, even though it was about two in the afternoon on a Wednesday, in the middle of the summer.

"Where is everyone?" she asked. "Isn't this area supposed to be . . . I don't know, touristy?"

"Yeah," Sam offered half-heartedly.

"So . . . Sam?"  
"What?" Sam replied, paying a bit more attention to her now.

"So, where are all the people? Or at least . . . I don't know, a car?" Lucy looked around, waving her hands in annoyance. Without waiting for Sam's answer,s he ran off. She raced around, grabbing at door handles. Nothing budged. She ran until her feet were beaded with pebbles. She still kept trying door handles, kept going after her hands were calloused.

"It's . . . It's empty," she muttered. She started to laugh. It was a small burst of giggles here and there that turned into sobs. "There's no one here. I died and came back to life to live in a town with no civilization!"  She looked up to see Sam standing above her, holding her shoes. He kneeled down and wiped at her cheeks. When his fingers pulled away wet, she touched her face. She pulled her hand back and stared at the salty tears dripping from her skin.

"I'm," she gasped. "I'm okay. Really. I'm okay." Lucy wasn't sure if she was saying it more for Sam's benefit or her own.

Wiping away the rest of her tears with one hand, she put on her shoes with another. Putting a hand on Sam's shoulder, she heaved herself up.

They walked back to the car in silence. As Lucy pushed away tears that kept falling, she noticed Sam glancing at her. She did her best to ignore it.

"Okay, what?" She stopped as they neared the Impala. Sam pulled up short of opening the door.

"What?"

"Don't what my what!" Lucy exclaimed. She brushed her bangs out of her crazed eyes. "What's with the stares? Never seen a girl cry before?"

"No!" He sighed. "not, it's just . . . I don't know, guess I just . . . wasn't expecting it from you."

She climbed into the ride and said with a murmur, "Tough bitch with a broken soul."

Sam climbed into the car after her with a curious expression. "That's . . . nice," he told her, starting the car. "Kind of . . . poetic."

"Benny called me that," she said softly, staring out the window as the scenery changed.

 

* * *

 

Lucy skipped into the library with a little more cheer than necessary. The first breathing thing she saw, she pounced on.

"Hey, Kev!" she exclaimed happily. "Sammy and me are looking for Dean. You seen him?"

"Don't call me Sammy," came from behind her. She just threw a smile over her shoulder.

Kevin glanced from Lucy's shining, excited eyes to Sam's shrouded, concerned ones. Jolting a thumb behind him, he said, "In his room."

"Thanks!" She slapped his shoulder as she bounced past.

"Why are you so . . . happy?" Sam asked when he caught up to her.

Lucy shrugged. "no reason." She turned around and walked backwards, occasionally dancing out of the way of his huge feet. He was, admittedly, much larger than her petite frame, but, in the wise words of Thor, "I've fought bigger."

"It's that one there, on the left," Sam pointed.

Lucy looked at the thick wooden door as she stopped in front of it. She raised her hands and slammed it with her palms. "Yo, Dean-o!" she hollered. She rammed her hands onto the wood, like a drum. "Open up!"

The door slid open, revealing a bleary-eyed Dean. He frowned down at her. "What?"

"Why are you wearing a robe?" she asked instead.

"Don't answer my question with another question."

"Too late!" Lucy pushed the door open further and walked in. "Were you sleeping? Why were you sleeping? It's four in the afternoon." Her words rapid-fired out of her mouth, barely stalling for a breath. Not expecting an answer, she continued. "It's summer, right? Tourist season?"

"Uh . . . Yeah?"

"Then where are all the fucking people? There's no one!"

When Lucy finally stopped talking, Dean just watched her. He seemed to be waiting for her to keep talking - or for her to take his head off with one of the many weapons hanging on the walls.

"Dean - ugh! Don't you get it?" She made her way over to him. The strain of trying not to scream was turning her face more red than her hair.

"Get what?" he asked after a pause. "What is there to get? Sam?"

The man in question sighed. "There's no one in town. All the shops are closed. There isn't even a car."

Dean stood in thought for longer than Lucy was comfortable with. Just before she decided she would slap him if he didn't react somehow, he spoke.

"It is tourist season, isn't it?" Sam nodded. "Huh." With no other words, Dean left the room. Lucy and Sam were right on his heels, following him to the garage.

 

* * *

 

"What I tell ya?"

The place was completely void of anything living. There wasn't even a pigeon. Lucy wondered briefly if there even were pigeons in Kansas, but it didn't matter. The three of them would still be the only living people in town. Dean had done the same thing she had, running to random doors and finding them all locked. Luckily, he had been smart enough to change out of his robe before running around, and Lucy was mentally drafting a letter to applaud the makers of his jeans.

"Get in," Dean said, otherwise ignoring her.

"Where are we going?" she asked, but didn't protest. She stuck her tongue out at Sam as he climbed into the shotgun.

"Anywhere. Somewhere with more than three people."


End file.
